Why 9/11 still hurts America
Two wars, three presidents and 17 years later, the tragic lessons of that time are still lost on politicians
Cataclysmic events often bring with them violent and abrupt endings to settled ages and long-established norms. Those absorbing the impact of these historical aftershocks rarely grasp the epochal changes in real time. Who could have imagined during their commute home on the night of November 21, 1963, that an event in Dallas the next day would shake the post-war order guaranteed by America’s victory in the Second World War? Even after Lee Harvey Oswald’s shots rang out from the Texas School Book Depository, could anyone have foreseen the collapse of such an ordered age soon overtaken by the anarchy of Vietnam, the murders of the Rev Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy, the race riots, Chicago, Kent State, Watergate, post-industrial rot and the cultural chaos set loose across America by these events?
And could even the most insightful observer have foreseen — while staring at the billowing smoke set against New York’s brilliant September sky — the avalanche of strategic blunders set in motion by Osama Bin Laden’s attack on the United States?
Of course not. But two wars, three presidents and 17 years later, the tragic lessons of that time are still lost on America’s leaders.
On September 10, 2001, the US dominated the world stage in a way no other country had since the height of the Roman and British empires. Nato’s long twilight struggle against the Soviet Union ended with Russia in ruins. The Japanese economic miracle, predicted by some to turn America into little more than a granary for Japan, had flatlined. And a rising China was still struggling with a multitude of internal security concerns and was eclipsed on the world stage by the Pax Americana. The US deployed a dazzling display of both soft and hard-power assets across the globe.
On the eve of Bin Laden’s 9/11 attacks, America’s gross domestic product was nearly 10 times China’s and 40 times Russia’s. The US military machine was unparalleled, with the Pentagon spending more on national defence than the next 15 countries combined. And despite those staggering outlays, Washington was running a $125 billion (Dh459.75 billion) surplus.
Seventeen years later, endless wars abroad and reckless policies in US have produced annual deficits approaching $1 trillion. US President Donald Trump’s Republican Party will create more debt in one year than was generated in the first 200 years of America’s existence. And while the US has been mired in endless wars and bloody occupations over the past 17 years, China has used that same period to aggressively develop economic partnerships across Asia, Europe, Latin America and Africa.
For those of us still believing that terrorists hate America because of the freedoms the country guarantees to all people, the gravest threat Trump poses to America’s national security is the damage done daily to America’s image. As the New York Times’ Roger Cohen wrote the month after Trump’s election: “America is an idea. Strip freedom, human rights, democracy and the rule of law from what the United States represents to the world and America itself is gutted.”
Bin Laden was killed by SEAL Team 6 before he accomplished that goal. Other tyrants who tried to do the same were consigned to the ash heap of history. The question for American voters before this autumn’s midterms is whether their country will move beyond this troubled chapter in history or whether they will continue supporting a politician who has done more damage to the dream of America than any foreign adversary ever could.